By James Cornish
The campaign for a pedestrian crossing on Brixton Water Lane ended successfully last night when Sainsbury’s agreed to cover the £100,000 bill.
The supermarket chain is building a new store at the road’s junction with Tulse Hill and residents feared the crossroads would become even more dangerous.
Sainsbury’s agreed to fund the crossing opposite the Hootananny pub following meetings with Transport for London and Lambeth Highways and hopes it will be completed much more quickly than the 14-month timescale given by the authorities.
TfL will undertake the work which will for the first time provide a safe route for, among others, pupils walking from the St Matthew’s area to Jubilee Primary School. Only two of the busy junction’s four roads have pedestrian crossings at present.
David Woods, who was part of the campaign, said: “Putting aside views about the domination of supermarkets on the high street, I feel that this is a very positive result that reflects well on Sainsbury’s.”
“They’ve acted with a genuine commitment to being a good member of the community, unlike certain competitors.”
Another campaigner, Tim Fairhurst, of the Josephine Avenue Group, welcomed the news. “We are encouraged Sainsbury’s is listening to our concerns, especially on road safety,” he said. “We will now be working with them to make sure local people have a fair crack at the job opportunities.”
The new Sainsbury’s store – on the old Carpetright and Topps Tiles site – is scheduled to open in nine weeks with the creation of 100 jobs.
At 12,000sq ft, it is sized halfway between a ‘Local’ store and a full-scale supermarket and marks a new departure for the chain.
Almost 150 residents had unsuccessfully objected to the granting of an alcohol licence citing traffic fears and the impact on small shops.
Excellent – well done sainsbury’s, and I hope ( and am sure) your new store will do well. For so long this junction has been a bit reacherous for pedestrians to cross. Certainly cannot rely on the rather hopeless Lambeth Council to do it – they cannot even maintain the – what was a loverly new square at Windrush – let alone handle any thing as mind blowingly rocket science as a pedestrian crossing. As more businesses are encouraged into the area scehemes like this will follow on. Thank goodness for what Space Makers started 3 years ago, what a butterfly effect that has turned out to be for Brixton. Now hopefully there will be enough footfall in this forgotten part of the world for some new business to spring up and smarten up this neck of the woods. I just hope its not more junk shops, fried chciken, money transfer, payday loans, etc. The excellent mens barbers over the road, and the once excellent Brazas can only benefit too.
This is good news, however I hope drivers acknowledge it unlike the many cars that speed through the pedestrian crossing round the corner near Currys/Halfords.
Why don’t they just build a moving treadmill that brings their customers directly into their store doors. They can ask customers on the treadmill to wear special glasses that block out any other stores in the vicinity.
I had to do a bit of googling to find out who you were talking about, and there was I thinking I knew my area
The crossing is great, however it is a shame that they couldnt have been a bit more sensitive to the demographics of the area before choosing the advertising images for the hoardings
so true but would they represent TN1 or GAS??